What to have on the main bus

[DragonHarrier]

What should I put on my new main bus and how many belts of each item?
I mean, I sort of know what items already, I just don't know the quantities.

Iron
Copper
Steel
Plastic
Coal
Iron Gear
Electronic Circuit
Advanced Circuit
Stone Brick

I know I could just use bots, but I am trying to get the logistics embargo achievement.

[Hedning]

Do you just want to finish the game, or do you plan on continuing after the rocket? Do you want your bus to be big enough for 1 rocket but no more, or what is the maximum width you plan on using?

I can tell you the ratio for pure science production making each color of equal proportion without using modules. Using iron plates as index 100:
Copper: 78
Steel: 7
Plastic: 15
Coal: 13
Iron Gear: 6
Electronic Circuit: 38
Advanced Circuit: 6
Stone Brick: 2

Note that this is for science only. You especially want more gears and iron plates because that's what your betls cost to produce.

You may also want blue circuits and engines on the bus, but they get below index 1.

Remember. For science production half of iron goes to steel, almost all coal goes to plastic and grey science, copper and the rest of iron goes to green circuits and greens go to blue and red.
These simple relations means much less needs to enter the bus if you build them next to eachother.

[Nailfoot]

8 belts of iron plates.
4 belts of copper plates
4 belts of green circuits
2 belts steel
2 belts of plastic
2 belts of bricks
2 belts of red circuits (usually at least one belt runs "backwards" up the buss to the mall)
1 belt of blue circuits
1 belt of coal
1 belt of stone ore (for the mall)
1 pipe of lube
1 pipe of sulfuric acid
PERHAPS 1 pipe of water and petro

4 empty lanes for a stone walkway to run/drive through your factory at speed
4 MORE empty lanes to allow a train to drive down the buss, if you deem it useful.

[valenti_scott]

I agree with Hedning, that it depends on whether you want to launch one satellite and then say "game over" (and start over), or continue on, and see how many satellites you can launch, and build a mega-base!

[DragonHarrier]

Originally posted by valenti_scott:

I agree with Hedning, that it depends on whether you want to launch one satellite and then say "game over" (and start over), or continue on, and see how many satellites you can launch, and build a mega-base!

Well, atm I am going to the achievements of beating the game, no logistic bot network and reasearch all tech

[Kurt]

I tend to only use main busses when bootstrapping up a large train-based base... so just iron, copper, steel, green circuits, and maybe gears.... spaghetti for everything else. While I might leave room for 4x iron/copper, 2x everything else, the setup normally doesn't live long enough for me to flush it out completely.

[Thryden]

I use

4x iron
4x copper
4x green circuit
2x steel
2x coal
2x red circuit
2x plastic
2x battery
2x blue circuit
1x sulfuric acid
1x lubricant

[valenti_scott]

If what you're going for is launching one satellite (beating the game) and researching all techs (for the achievement), in my experience you don't really need a "full" bus. I think this would be adequate:

2 iron (maybe just 1)
2 copper (maybe just 1)
1 gears
1 green circuits
1 red advanced circuits
1 steel
1 blue circuits (processing units)
1 speed modules

I find that 1 iron and copper are usually sufficient, but will need to be upgraded to red belts in certain areas, maybe blue belts. You may need two of each, esp. to get all the techs. I played a game the other day to launching the satellite with the above bus. 1 iron and 1 copper. 15h 39m. Minimal tech, no aliens, resources large/frequent/very rich.

I find the other stuff doesn't normally need to be on the bus per se:
Coal: you really only need it for grenades, plastic, and fuel for steel furnaces. You can often find multiple sources of coal and route them there they need to go.

Plastic: only needed for red advanced circuits and low density structures (LDS). I typically create small plastic factories where they are needed. Red circuits and LDSs eat a lot of plastic.

Batteries: only needed for gold science, so you can set up a battery factory next to gold science. You'll also need them for accumulators for your satellite, but only 100. Also for your battery equipment.

Sulfuric acid for batteries and blue circuits, and lubricant for e-engines. Since they are piped, I find they don't really need to be on the bus, but can be spaghettied to where they need to go.

I like to spread out my belts in the bus. One belt, two spaces, one belts, two spaces, etc. It makes it easier to route things off the belts IMO. I talked about this in a thread a few months back.
-Scott

[Thryden]

Originally posted by valenti_scott:

If what you're going for is launching one satellite (beating the game) and researching all techs (for the achievement), in my experience you don't really need a "full" bus. I think this would be adequate:

2 iron (maybe just 1)
2 copper (maybe just 1)
1 gears
1 green circuits
1 red advanced circuits
1 steel
1 blue circuits (processing units)
1 speed modules


-Scott

Forgot about speed modules.. I do place a belt of those. I don't do gears due to the fact of how quickly they can be made and how often they are used. Whereever there is something that needs gears, I just place a few assembling machines there for gears and that is usually enough. However, for my production of belts, undergrounds, and splitters, I break off a smaller bus perpindicular to the main bus and I do but gears on that.

[DragonHarrier]

Oh, I already have blue belts. The reason I asked about what a main bus should have is because I am rebuilding my base from scratch.

[valenti_scott]

Yea, that's fine, to make gears where they are needed.

[BlueRock]

For me my last base that could launch three rockets every half hour had 4 belts iron, 4 belts copper, 2 belts green (but was starting to bottleneck, should have built 4 lanes green), 2 belts steel (from its own supply of iron ore and smelting, i.e. don't steal from the 4 belts of iron), 2 belts red circuits, 1 plastic, 1 belt blue circuits, 1 belt with half regular and half electric engines, 1 belt of batteries. I am currently thinking bigger now and starting a new game with a starter base and then working on building 'towns' that each produce stuff and use trains instead of a main bus to move supplies between the towns.